The Tavern of Archetype

“Characters are not people. They are patterns that forgot they were meant to end.”

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I woke up startled by the sound of birds in the distance. It was the first normal thing I heard since waking up in the Scriptorium. For a moment I thought that everything was just a dream. That was until I saw Ashen’s smug face just inches from mine.

“Good morning Sunshine. Time to get up. We have a long way to go today.”

I grudgingly picked myself up off the ground and ate the piece of bread he offered me. My legs were sore from yesterday’s travels, and I could hardly stand. How was I going to make today’s journey? Would he have to carry me again? I think that I would die of embarrassment if that was the case.

We made our way down what I would guess was the west side of the mountain. The rocks and trees gave way to barren desert. There was no sign of life, only a single road that stretched out straight all the way to the horizon.

Ashen was a man of very few words, so we walked in silence. A few hours into the dessert, I was second guessing my decision to follow my savior and guide. Where was he taking me? Why was I following him so blindly?

“This road isn’t long, it is unfinished,” said Ashen as if that is what I wanted to hear.

That was too much for me. Exhausted, I sat down on a rock by the side of the road. “I can’t go any further,” I said, pulling my knees up to my chest.

Ashen stopped and looked at me with piercing eyes. I prepared myself to be picked up and corried off again. Instead, he walked over to the rock and sat down beside me. He took some bread and water out of his bag, and shared it with me.

“It is a good time for a lunch break,” he said in his normal dry voice that almost sounded like he cared.

I looked down at the stale piece of bread then back at the mountains where the fog came down between peaks like the hand of some monster. I wondered if we would be running forever. I haven’t eaten a real meal since I arrived in this world. I wished for a place to rest in safety, a place safe from the fog.

The spiral ink scar on my hand started to burn with pain. The words that I spoke began to form, and then disappear. The wind changed directions bringing with it a sense of a pending thunderstorm. The pain subsided.

It appeared out of nowhere as if it was willed into existence out of pure desperation. At one moment, there was nothing around us but pure emptiness. In the next moment, a building appeared at the side of the road not too far in the distance.

I looked at ashen for some reassurance that what I was seeing wasn't some sort of exhaustion induced illusion or a mirage. He was already looking at me with a look of shock on his face.

“Did you do that,” he asked with a hint of amazement?

“I don’t think so. I just wished for a safe place to rest and a real meal, ” I replied timidly.

At this time, I really had no idea. I hadn’t yet found out my true connection to this place, or the role that I was destined to play.

Ashen stared at me to the point that I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He let out the heartiest laugh that I had ever heard. I was more shocked about this sudden outburst of emotion than the building that appeared from nowhere. It is the first true honest emotion that I had seen from him.

“I think I know what that place is,” he said while trying to control himself. “It is the Tavern of Archetypes. I thought it was a myth. They say that it only appears to people who either it needs or who needs it. If that is what it is, we should be safe there for a while.”

* * *

The magic in this world was made of words. The written word was the most powerful. The building we were approaching looked like it had been written in a hurry. It had unfinished, wooden siding and a rusted tin roof. It existed as a nexus between all the genres of Draftland.

Outside the tavern, a flickering neon sign buzzed in the half-light.

THE CHARACTER ARC

The letters blinked, stuttered, rearranged themselves:

THE ARCHETYPE

THE CATASTROPHE

Then back again.

Approaching the door, we could hear soft music from inside. I opened the door, and we stepped inside, and the world stopped. The music stopped. The bartender stopped cleaning his glass. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and turned their eyes on me. As abruptly as everything stopped, it all went back to normal.

The inside of the tavern was dirty. Not in a disgusting way, but in a lived in, cosy way. The tables and chairs were all mismatched. Some were even worn and damaged. The plus looked like it had been here for ages, and showed the wear of time. The bar itself was made of ornate, hand carved wood. Behind it was a wall full of bottles of alcohol and an ornate mirror that looked like it had seen better days.

Besides Ashen and myself, there were only 5 other people in here. The bartender stood behind the bar cleaning the same glass over and over again. Across from him on our side of the bar was a towering man wearing dull armor, the polish long sense worn away. He stood with perfect posture speaking to a wiry framed man wearing a patchwork vest with dozens of mismatched buttons. Half a jester’s cap hung from one shoulder like it gave up halfway through the joke. Sitting in a chair at the end of the bar was an elderly man in robes. He was watching me and writing in his little book. The last person stood in the shadows watching us. She wore a red dress and had an aura of nobility. I didn’t trust her.

Ashen took a seat at a table in the back of the tavern and I went to the counter to order drinks and food. The old man watches me, writing things in his book that erased themselves as soon as he was done.

“You are not supposed to be here,” the old man said.

I turned back to answer him, but the old man had already turned his attention to his book, writing as if he never saw me. I chose not to say anything.

I turned back to the bar just in time to catch my reflection in the mirror.

At first, it was just me looking pale, exhausted, and a little hollow around the eyes. Then it changed.

My image crackled to static before dissolving into a new image. I saw me with dried, flaking blood on my hands. I was scrubbing them with water that wouldn’t run clear. I looked desperate and ashamed. I looked like someone who had convinced herself she had no choice.

Then fire. I was bound to a wooden post, flames climbing my legs. The crowd was weeping, shouting, calling my name like I meant something. It was as if my death would solve something. I smiled through the smoke.

The flames turned to stone walls. I stood in a high window in a castle I didn’t recognize, wearing a gown I would never choose, waiting for someone whose name I’d never known. Was it a prince or a rescuer? I couldn’t tell. My face was soft and empty.

Then fangs. Eyes like ink blots, wide and hungry. I was crawling toward something, or someone like a predator who remembered being human but had stopped caring.

And then… just me. The real me. The small and quiet me.

I whispered without meaning to, “Was I ever meant to be any of them?”

The answer came from behind me. It wasn't cruel, but it was clear and honest.

“No. You were never finished long enough to become anything. You’re a paragraph that someone left open.”

I turned. It was the old man in robes, the one with the blank book. He was still writing, though his hand didn’t move.

“The mirror doesn’t lie,” he said. “But it doesn’t tell the truth either. Just options. Echoes. Masks.”

He nodded at the glass.

“You can pick one. Be the villain. The martyr. The love interest. The monster. And the Rewrite will leave you alone.” He paused. “Or you can stay exactly as you are, unfinished, unstable, and impossible to predict. And be hunted forever.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I watched my reflection for a moment longer. She blinked back at me. She didn’t smile. But she didn’t flinch either.

I tried to comprehend what he was saying. I was going to ask him to explain, but before I had a chance, he started speaking again.

“As someone once told me… no, wait. I told them. Or dreamed I did.” Then sat back down and started writing in his blank book again.

“Don’t mind Grinn. He is our resident wise man,” said the tin man in armor.

He introduced himself to me as Sir Volarix, the hero. He spoke in a noble, formal language. He introduced me to Tomlin, the comic relief. The woman hiding in the shadows was Lady Corvaine, the femme fatale. She was once the leading lady in an espionage/mystery narrative, but she has seen her story reduced to the double agent, the dead wife, and now she is nothing more than a beautiful distraction.

Each of them had traded their individuality for the safety of a generic archetype. It was made clear that I would have to choose or leave. Staying without choosing would endanger everyone here. My existence here has already made the rewrite aware of them.

I sat down across from Ashen and told him what I had learned. Before he had a chance to answer me, Lady Corvaine sat down next to me, put her hand on my shoulder, and passed a folded piece of paper in front me.

The page was blank, but felt heavy. Lady Corvaine wanted me to stay as the Oracle. It wasn’t out of malice. She honestly believed that it was the kinder choice. Accepting the role would mean that I could stop running. The rewrite fog and the proofreaders would leave me alone.

Ashen could see on my face that I was considering the offer to become the oracle. It was much better than the role of the martyr or worse, the love interest.

“What if I’ve already been written, and this is the end of me?”

“We need to leave,” Ashen interjected, looking at me with intense eyes.

“There’s nothing on the next page but teeth, sugar,” she said. “I’ve read it. I’ve lived it. It ends in fire or silence.”

Ashen didn’t answer her. He understood that the comment was directed at me. I didn’t say anything either, so I sat there looking at the page.

“It’s not so bad. If you choose your trope, they stop chasing you,” she said in a voice that showed true concern.

Accepting meant the safety of living here at the tavern forever. I would be a generic version of myself able to be slotted into any story for a limited role. I would be safe, but that is not living. That would be a quiet afterlife for fragments that remained. I could not accept that. I folded the page and passed it back to Lady Corvaine.

“Then I’ll keep running. At least the path will be mine,” was my reply to her.

Lady Corvaine just smiled. “That’s the thing about choices in stories, darling. You never really know if you made one.”

Ashen and I got up to leave. Nobody in there really wanted to see me leave, but they understood. We said our goodbye, but it did not feel like they were forever goodbyes. Deep down inside, I knew that I would see them again.

Tomlin gave me a hug. He told me to remember him when I was in need of a laugh. He removed a button from his vest and handed it to me. I slipped it into my pocket. The moment was small, but unshakeable.

We turned to leave. As Ashen opened the door, Grinn grabbed my arm, looked me in the eye and said, “Remember.”

* * *

As we crossed the threshold the neon sign glitched one more time from “THE CHARACTER ARC” to “THE AUTHOR’S ERROR.”

Outside things have changed. The world had changed again. We were no longer in the desert, but back into a rocky mountain landscape. The air was cold and heavy, warning of a pending storm.

A shadow figure stood in front of us. I could not make out the face, but it wore a cloak made of rejected drafts and quills sewn together.

“It’s the Draftkeeper,” Ashen said while resting his hand on the hilt of his sword.

The Draftkeeper held up a handful of papers with burnt edges. I recognized them as the papers that were scattered across the Scriptorium,

He looked at me and said, “The Final Revision is coming. And you… you're in its footnotes.”

In a flicker of light, it was gone leaving only the lonely path ahead of us.